“I hope we’re not too late.” Detlef said, reaching the shore of Lake Marius adjacent to its eponymous mountain range.
“The sun’s just about to set,” Leon said. “We might’ve made it just in time. Navigation at night will make them easy targets for the Angels with the artificial lights on their crafts.”
“I think you’re right.” Detlef said. He pointed up at the sky. Dark shapes were present against an orange pink backdrop, coming closer and closer to the mountains, becoming larger. The team led by the Anbieter to investigate the fate of Derban had returned.
Leon pulled Detlef towards the two hovering scooters they had brought to the shore hours earlier, obscured by a few large boulders.
“We ought to make it up before they ask Jay where we’ve been!” he cried. The two young men boarded their respective scooters and adjusted their speed to the maximum that was possible without crashing into the mountain. The crafts entered one by one a narrow slit in the mountain that allowed them to reach the hangar, but disembarking and doing final checkups would give the two young men a good few minutes to return to the base without detection.
Once inside the corridor that allowed access to the communal hall and therefore the rest of the base, they ran as fast they could down its length to the doors. Detlef grasped one of the handles of the doors and expected that only a light tug would open it since the main doors into the base were kept unlocked, invisible sensors making sure that anyone who went in or out was indeed able to go in and out. But it had been locked, even though the sun had just started to set.
“Shit!” he cried. He banged his fists on the stone doors frantically. Along with being shy, he was relatively quick to go into fear. It was rather unlike the traits of most medics, but his skill with the scalpel outweighed it enough that he’d been recruited into the Black Shield.
“Calm down, Det!” Leon called in a kind but domineering tone. “I’m sure someone must’ve accidentally locked them a little early. We’ll just have to wait until someone passes by on the other side.”
“Are you lost, medics?” a voice asked, accompanied by the footsteps of over a dozen people. Leon and Detlef turned to see the soldiers sent out by the Anbieter, as well as the man himself, unmasked.
“A-Angel?” Detlef muttered. “You’re a…”
“I was surprised, too,” Vigdis said, stepping in front of her leader. “But there are more important matters at hand. We tried going in through the hangar, but someone inside overrode the master lock system which is controlled inside the base. All my combinations are toast. There’s a manual lock here, though. We can get in using it.”
Vigdis pulled out what appeared to look like a gun from her utility belt, but the scent of gunpowder was not present. Instead it was powered by Utrium, as were virtually all of her inventions. Vigdis was also able to use the substance, but the Reserve associated with wasn’t her own. She, like Leon, was also contracted with an Utrium User, the person in question being the Anbieter. She aimed her gun at the high ceiling above her and located a specific point. At the pull of a trigger a small, hot cannonball flew out of the muzzle, breaking up on impact with a very particular block of stone, which receded into the mountain. The locks of the doors made a clicking noise. The doors opened automatically, exposing darkness within. The sun had only just set, so there was no way for the communal hall to just be so impossible to look into. Unless, of course, the lamps had all been blown out.
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The Anbieter stretched his hand out. He pumped a small quantity of Reserve through his veins into his palm which shot upwards, creating a sort of torch made from manipulating the Reserve particles into frenzying. He had created heatless, purple light by using a kind of Casting besides barrier-forming. Just enough to illuminate the space in front of him.
The situation had already been strange enough, but when a stream of red liquid trickled towards the Anbieter’s feet, it was cause for alarm. The medics as well as Stefan’s paralyzed body were encircled by the other returning soldiers who had immediately moved to protect the three vulnerable individuals. Vigdis remained at Anbieter’s side, though, fearful that they might’ve taken the chance to harm him after learning of his identity only hours prior.
The stream of blood led to a shape that was sprawled out over the floor. The source of the stream was someone’s head—someone had been killed. One of their own Black Shield.
“Is it an intruder?” Leon asked, his hand on Detlef’s shoulder to remind him that everything was going to be under control.
“No signs of a break-in,” the Anbieter said, slowly walking throughout the hall only to find more and more Black Shield bodies dead in their own base. “Whoever did it was already in here. Men, search every single square inch of this place. The person responsible for this is still inside. I’ll need three of you to be here to guard Stefan and our two medics. The rest of you, gather the injured in the stock room.”
The soldiers hesitated, but Vigdis shot them a particular look, one that told them that although she realized that they might’ve felt betrayed, the fate of their comrades depended on them listening to their Titanian leader. They split up, creating their own Reserve torches that Gareth had taught them to generate after Initiating them. The scene the collective lights revealed was harrowing—motionless bodies scattered around as blood and brain matter trickled out of single wounds in their skulls. Some bodies still had recognizable faces, being shot in the back or side of the head. Others weren’t so lucky. However, some were still clinging onto their lives, their bullet wounds located on their limbs or places away from their vital organs. It was almost as if they had been kept alive on purpose, to give the Anbieter a warning.
Is Jay safe? the Anbieter wondered.
“Hey,” Vigdis said, tapping the leader on the shoulder which caused him to flinch. “I think it might be worth giving extra attention to the holding cells.”
“We decided to keep Glynn and Norskov there for their disobedience… why do you mention them?”
“I… it’s just a hunch.”
“Your hunches have been known to be correct.” the Anbieter said. With that, he instructed that when searching the holding cells, soldiers should exercise extra caution.
Upon arriving there, the soldiers were astonished to see both Glacial Landers enlistees injured. Meinrad clenched his oozing thigh, gritting his teeth together to appease the burning pain as best as he could. Klaudia lay in the next cell with a bullet hole below her heart, the projectile lodged in her rib bones. She did not move, but she was breathing. The soldiers rushed to evacuate their two detained comrades and quickly placed them in the stock room where they would be side-by-side with 150 or so of their fellow Black Shield. 120 soldiers died that day, including the ones massacred during the hunting trip. 30 of them had been spared, the murderer having been forced to stop as soon as the Anbieter returned. None of them were able to see who had been responsible since the lights had been blown out before the killing spree went down. The killer or killers were fast, making sure not to show their faces and left some people alive on purpose. This was a calculated and deliberate attack, one that only those who had access to specific resources could’ve pulled off.
Leon, Detlef and a handful of other medics who weren’t too badly injured quickly made their way through the wounded, doing their best to imbue some of their Reserve and dress their injuries as fast as they could before moving onto the next. The grandson of Marius’ renowned doctor forced as much borrowed Reserve out as he could, understanding that his output was considerably lesser than normal. This undoubtedly had something to do with both Stefan’s mental and physical conditions.
As Detlef and Leon’s hands floated over Meinrad’s body, he had managed to mutter something out that was vital, but also confirmed the Anbieter’s suspicions.
“There are… traitors among us…”